There is an emerging trend for businesses to provide new and exciting consumer experiences through the use of surface or multi-touch screen technology. In particular, businesses such as hotels, bars, restaurants and casinos are interested in providing touch screen display tables for use by their customers and/or guests. Companies such as Samsung have developed touch screen display tables with user interfaces that recognize fingers, hands and objects placed on the screen, enabling vision based interaction. The individual pixels in the display “see” what is touching the screen, and that information is processed and interpreted. For example, a multi-touch screen display table may be located in a hotel lobby with several chairs positioned around the table. A hotel guest graphical user interface may be configured to interpret finger touch inputs and then to display photographs of hotel amenities and/or local points of interest when a guest at the hotel presses icons visible on the touch screen surface. Similar touch screens or touch panels are in use and provide user interfaces for devices such as tablet PCs, self-service terminals, and mobile devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) and mobile telephones.
A number of different technologies have been developed for touch panel displays. For example, touching the screen of a resistive touch panel causes layers, which are normally separated by a small gap, to come into contact, while touching the screen of a capacitive touch panel changes the capacitance. In another example, a touch screen may utilize optical sensors (e.g. an optical sensor array) to detect when a screen is touched. The use of optical sensors enables multi-touch sensing, which is the detection of multiple simultaneous touches on the same screen. Such optical touch screens typically use a shadow mode of operation and/or a reflective mode of operation. In shadow mode, the sensor detects the shadow cast by an object coming into contact with the screen. The shadow mode of operation is affected by the level of ambient visible lighting such that if the lighting is too dim then there may be no shadow and so the touch screen will fail to detect touch events. In the reflective mode of operation, the touch screen includes a light source that illuminates objects which are brought into contact with the screen and a sensor detects the light reflected back by the objects. In cases wherein the touch screen includes an LCD screen, which allows images to also be displayed on the screen, the image may affect the detection of objects because different color regions will allow different amounts of light to be transmitted through. Such an arrangement may affect the amount of light that reaches the object and thus how much of the reflected light reaches the sensor. In other embodiments, a touch panel utilizes an infrared light source and an array of infrared sensors to detect when objects contact, or are close to, the touchable surface of the panel.
Manufacturers of touch screen tables have promoted them for use in retail settings, such as bars and restaurants, with interfaces that permit consumers to order items. In some embodiments, payment cards, such as credit or debit cards that include a magnetic stripe on which the relevant account number and/or other information is stored, could be used to pay for purchases if the touch screen tables can recognize the cards and accept payment. In addition, “proximity payment cards” or “contactless payment cards” have been developed that include a radio frequency identification (RFID) integrated circuit (IC), often referred to as a “chip” embedded in the card body. A suitable antenna is also embedded in the card body and is connected to the RFID chip to allow the chip to receive data and to transmit data by RF communication via the antenna. In typical arrangements, the RFID chip is powered from an interrogation signal that is transmitted by a proximity reader and received by the card antenna. MasterCard International Incorporated, the assignee hereof, has established a widely-used standard, known as “PayPass®”, for interoperability of contactless payment cards and proximity readers. Thus, in some implementations, the account number of the proximity payment card is automatically read from the card by radio frequency (RF) communication between the payment card and the proximity reader, which device is conventionally incorporated with a Point-of-Sale (POS) terminal. In addition, in some payment application implementations, a Near Field Communication (NFC) protocol can be utilized to wirelessly exchange information.
The capabilities of a contactless payment card have also been incorporated into portable or mobile devices, thereby turning such mobile devices into contactless payment devices. For example, mobile telephones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), tablet computers, laptop computers, and the like can be equipped with integrated circuitry having the same functionality as the RFID IC of a contactless payment card. In some embodiments, such payment-enabled mobile devices and/or contactless payment devices include a loop antenna coupled to the payment-related IC for use in sending and/or receiving messages in connection with a purchase transaction that involves contactless payment.
The inventors recognized that there is a need for providing systems, apparatus and methods which may include a user interface to facilitate and enhance the use of touch screen technology for contactless payment transactions and/or for other types of transactions.